Pronto Cycle Share turned two years old last week, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of celebration.
At this point, the system has spent more time operating in a state of uncertainty and controversy than it has operating normally. And that uncertainty has had a huge impact on membership and ridership. After all, few people are going to invest $85 for a year pass if they are not even sure the system will exist for that year.
We’ve already reported on the series of unfortunate political and bureaucratic missteps and unforced errors that led the system to this point. Without corrective action, there’s no reason to expect this downward spiral of bad press and declining membership to fix itself.
While the city negotiates and plans for an all-new expanded and electrified system, there seem to be three options for the existing system: Shut it down in January, continue operate at a loss, or reimagine the existing system to try out new ideas. The Council needs to choose which option to pursue in coming weeks before voting on the 2017-18 budget.
City Councilmember Lisa Herbold — with the strong support of Councilmember Tim Burgess — took a big step towards killing the current system Wednesday, proposing a change that would redirect the $600,000 for 2017-18 Pronto operating funds to go to biking, walking and school safety projects instead (see the discussion starting at 23:20 in this video).
“The replacement bid that has come in does not include funding for operations,” Herbold said, referring to the leading bike share expansion proposal by the Quebec-based Bewegen. So her redirect of funds would not necessarily impact a relaunched system.
But the existing Pronto system does need those funds. The new system is aiming for a spring/summer 2017 launch, but that timeline may prove too tight. If the launch slips too far into summer, the city will (wisely) hold the launch until spring 2018. Pronto was supposed to stay in operation until a new system is ready to launch. (more…)